


Ohana

by darwinsdonut



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: A-Spec Grif, Background KaiGrey, Brief Mention of Violence, Call of Duty - Freeform, Canon Divergent, Coming Out, Fluffy, Gen, Grif Siblings - Freeform, Grif's OCD, High School Kaikaina, Mention of recreational drug use, Modern AU, Pansexual Kaikaina, Pizza, ukulele playing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 05:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darwinsdonut/pseuds/darwinsdonut
Summary: Grif gets home from work to find Kaikaina home on a Friday night; he figures there's something wrong and attempts to cheer her up.[For Kaikaina Appreciation Week 2018]





	Ohana

The Grif house was quiet when Dexter got home.

Maybe that  _ shouldn’t  _ be the cause for alarm, but he knew Kai’s volleyball game ended an hour before his shift, and she should be home partying right now- or be  _ out  _ at a party. But he’d seen her car in the driveway, and there was her bag by the door- so she was here, but quiet. A few of his worst fears popped into the back of his head while Dexter dropped his keys and wallet on the end table and locked the front door, and he tried his best to quash them down. Why the hell was she home so early on a Friday night?

Dexter tried to rid his mind of undue concern as he entered the bathroom and took a quick shower, but the thoughts continued to press, feeling more and more valid the more time he had to worry. He needed to  _ check-  _ the urge was building, check the kitchen for food, check the front door is locked, check Kai’s not dead- but that was… Extreme. 

He pulled on sleep pants and a hoodie and went to Kai’s door. Closed, no sound from inside, either. Maybe she’d dropped her car off and gone somewhere?

He knocked on the door and heard something shift inside the room. She was definitely there, then- or they were being robbed, but more likely she was home. 

“Kai? You… Okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just… Not in a people mood right now, Dex.”

_ Definitely  _ something wrong. Kai saying “not in a people mood” was like Dexter saying he wasn’t hungry. It was just  _ wrong. _ He lingered by the door another moment, and decided to leave her be, for now. He could let her rest a bit and then try to lure her out.

He cleaned the dishes in the sink to busy his hands while his mind circled with worry for her, leading to more irrational worries (thanks OCD), and he focused on the task at hand as he moved around the kitchen. Threw a frozen pizza in the oven, cracked open a Coke and drank some of it, played some hip hop he knew she liked. Nothing worked.

Dexter knew one surefire way to get her out of her room, but it was… Generally saved for extreme situations. 

Well, then again-  _ Not in a people mood  _ qualified this as an extreme situation.

The pizza still cooking, Dexter entered his room and grabbed his ukulele, a final remnant of his father, and then headed into the living room and sat down on the couch. 

He strummed a few opening chords, tweaked the tuning, strummed a few more. Played around a bit. He heard her bed shift, the springs groaning at the slightest movement from years of over-use. He toyed with chords for a couple more minutes, and then got the song idea.

He played a C, a B7, E7, F… And then words: “Slow down, you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile…”

Dexter wasn’t the  _ best  _ vocalist, his voice was too gruff and his range was poor at best, but Kaikaina had asked him to play for her the day their dad died, and again the first time their mom left. It was… Habit, almost. When things were hard, Dexter picked up their dad’s ukulele, played what chords he knew, and sang whatever song he felt best fit the situation. Tonight, that meant Billy Joel.

He came back from half-zoning out as the door down the hall opened. The smell of pizza filled the dingy living room now, as Grif filled the air with, “Slow down, you’re doing fine- you can’t be everything you want to be before your time…”

Kaikaina came out with bloodshot eyes and a busted lip, causing a stab of alarm in Grif’s chest. As soon as their eyes met, she looked away, but still came to sit down beside him.  _ The busted lip is just from the volleyball game,  _ he told himself while playing through the solo.

He played the last chorus and the outro while Kai sat with her knees up and her back to the couch. He wanted to glance over at her, ask what happened, check on her,  _ something,  _ but instead he moved to another song. What was that one she liked? He toyed with the chords, trying to remember the start… Ah, right.

“Hey where did we go, days when the rains came; down in the hollow, where we used to play…”

He moved through a gentle, less upbeat rendition of the song, and at the chorus she joined him: “You my, brown-eyed girl- Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…”

As the song came to a close, the oven went off, signalling it was time, at last, to go eat some pizza. Dexter set down the ukulele and looked over at her. Her eyes begged him not to ask any questions, so he settled on, “Want some pizza?”

“Yeah.”

One word answer? Must have been a  _ really  _ bad night.

Dexter took the pizza out of the oven, dimly aware of Kaikaina in the background zoned out on the couch. He cut the pizza into slices and divvied it onto two plates, and then brought it back into the living room and set it on the crowded coffee table. They really needed to clean… Well, it was the weekend now, so maybe before work tomorrow.

“Netflix or COD?”

Kaikaina considered for a moment, and then said, “COD.”

Another one-word answer. Grif turned on the XBox, their one commodity, and went to games.

For half an hour or so, the only conversation involved pizza, “pwning these bitches” (in Kaikaina’s words), and whether or not they wanted to play Zombies. Then, midway through a COD match, after a while of minimal conversation:

“So I got in a fight tonight.”

Dexter’s sibling instinct demanded he fight whoever had busted his sister’s lip, but he forced himself to headshot someone and simply reply, “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Kai laughed under her breath. “I found out Cassie- you know, my volleyball team-mate- is homophobic.”

That was… A bridge they hadn’t discussed. “...Oh?”

“Yeah! We were all about to go out and party, y’know?  _ Suck my cock, fucking tit-bite.  _ So we were all in the locker-room after the game, and we were going to go over to  _ Cassie’s  _ house, when she was like, ‘Yeah, but don’t let Emily know. I know she’s a girl now or whatever but like, my parents are totally not cool with me having a guy over.’ And I was like, bitch, what the fuck?  _ You’re  _ totally not cool. Man up. Or woman up. Or whatever. Just fucking-  _ suck a chode!-  _ grow a pair and invite Emily.”

Dexter died three times in the game just during those sentences, but managed to contain his outward reaction to a nod and  _ almost  _ getting a headshot.

“So she was like, ‘Why do  _ you  _ care? It’s not like  _ you’re  _ trans.’ And I was like, no, but LGBT is a community, you homophobic-  _ bitch-tits- fuck a traffic cone-  _ anyway. Ugh. So we calmed down that jazz and went out for pizza. I invited Emily and she rode with me. Emily’s great! She’s hella cute and can totally rock a crop top. So we get to the pizza place-”

“You went out for pizza without me!?”

“Shut the fuck up, Dex, I’m trying to tell you how I kicked ass.”

“From the look of that lip, you got  _ your  _ ass kicked.”

Kaikaina laughed and killed Dexter in-game. A team-killing penalty showed up on screen and he rolled his eyes. 

“Cassie didn’t do this,” Kaikaina said. “Emily’s stiletto did.”

_ “What?” _

Kai grinned. “So we got to the pizza place, as I was saying, and we get inside and Cassie’s still being a piece of shit. We hadn’t even paid yet when she was like, ‘Oh, nice, she-man came along.’ And uh… I might be banned from CiCi’s Pizza now.”

_ “KAI!” _

“Yeah. I maybe a little bit knocked Cassie’s teeth down her throat?”

The match ended with Kai head-shotting someone and she sat back and laughed. “Who am I kidding? I fucking  _ owned  _ that bitch. She was  _ floored!  _ And I wrapped my arm around Emily and as we walked out, Emily was like, ‘Floors are for whores!’ And Cassie was bleeding, it was a mess, and Monday’s gonna be  _ hella awkward.  _ But yeah! Then me and Emily went out for ice cream and got really stoned and I came home.”

Dexter looked over at his sister.  _ “Kaikaina.” _

She rolled her eyes. “Okay! Fine! There was a bit more to it! I called Cassie hot because she decided to go all  _ lesbophobic on me,  _ and I’m pan  _ anyway,  _ and now Emily’s kind of my girlfriend? I don’t know what’s going on in my life, Dex! Things got weird in my backseat and that’s how I busted my lip, and I got high because I was a little subdued because it was  _ Cassie  _ and you know I had a crush on her for like three fucking years. So it’s been a long night! I want to eat pizza and fucking shoot people! But all I’ve got is COD and this cardboard shit. It’ll do.”

Dex stared at his sister for a long moment and then laughed.  _ “Kaikaina.” _

“Dex, if you one-word me again, I swear to  _ fuck-” _

“You just came out to me.”

“I di-?  _ Oh.  _ That’s why you’re looking at me like that.” She grinned. “Well, Dex, I’m pan. I’m gonna bring home a girlfriend hotter than any you’ll ever get. How do you feel about that?”

Dexter raised his eyebrows. “Well, I… I don’t know. To be honest, Kai, I’ve never even felt attracted to anyone.”

“Huh. Guess you’ll die alone.” The next match started. “It’s so easy to believe you’ll die a virgin while I’ll get a hot wife. Dad always hoped for the opposite.”

Dexter  _ almost  _ spit out a bite of pizza. “I’m out here trying to comfort you because I think something’s seriously wrong, and you’re out here roasting me.”

“That’s siblings for you, Dex. And  _ headshot-  _ dead, bitch.”

Dexter dropped his controller. “You team-killing mother _ fucker!” _

“Hey, man, I play for all teams.”

Dexter rolled his eyes. “That can’t be your excuse for ev-  _ did you just KILL ME AGAIN?” _

Kaikaina tossed her head back and laughed, a haze of fluffy hair around her.

And sure, that bit about the shoe was definitely a lie, and maybe coming out to him had been part of what she was nervous about, but… He’d gotten her out of her room and eating pizza and playing a game and laughing. Even if he lost in COD, that was still a pretty significant win.

He laughed as well and turned back to the game.

Maybe shit wasn’t perfect, but at least they had each other.

**Author's Note:**

> songs referenced: "Vienna" by Billy Joel & "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison  
> mention of Grif's OCD; as always, if it seems inaccurate, let me know so I can fix it!  
> thank you for reading & I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
